Fireworks explode over the Gelora Bung Karno main stadium during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta on August 18, 2018. (Photo: AFP / BAY ISMOYO)

The 2018 Asian Games, officially known as the 18th Asian Games and also known as Jakarta Palembang 2018, is a pan-Asian multi-sport event scheduled to be held from 18 August to 2 September 2018 in the Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Palembang.

For the first time, the Asian Games are being co-hosted in two cities; the Indonesian Capital ofJakarta(which is hosting the Games for the first time since 1962), and Palembang, the Capital of the South Sumatra Province. Events will be held in and around the two cities, including venues in Bandung and province of West Java and Banten. The opening and closing ceremonies of the Games will be held at Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium in Jakarta.

Also for the first time, eSports and canoe polo will be contested as demonstration sports. eSports is expected to be a medal event at the 2022 Asian Games.

Bhin Bhin is a bird of paradise (Paradisaea Apoda) that represent strategy.

Atung is a Bawean deer (Hyelaphus Kuhlii) that represents speed​.

Kaka is a single-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros Sondaicus) that represents strength.

1 | Bidding process

1.1 | Hanoi

Hanoi, Vietnam was originally selected to be the host after they won the bid against two other candidates, Surabaya and Dubai. They were awarded the winning bid on 8 November 2012, with 29 votes against Surabaya’s 14 votes Dubai pulled out at the last minute, instead announcing their intention to focus on future bids. The UAE’s National Olympic Committee’s vice-president denied any pullout and claimed that Dubai “did not apply for hosting 2019 Asian Games” and had “only considered” doing so.

However, in March 2014, there were some concerns about Vietnam’s ability to host. These included concerns over whether the anticipated budget of US$150 million was realistic. There were claims that the government would eventually spend over US$300 million. In addition, critics were concerned that several stadiums built in conjunction with 2003 Southeast Asian Games had not been utilized since. Former chairman of the Vietnam Olympic Committee Ha Quang Du also claimed that hosting the Asian Games would not boost tourism in Vietnam.

On 17 April 2014, the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng officially announced Hanoi’s withdrawal from hosting. He cited unpreparedness and economic recession as the main reasons for the withdrawal, saying they have left the country unable to afford the construction of facilities and venues. Many Vietnamese people supported the decision to withdraw. No penalty was imposed for the withdrawal.

1.2 | Appointment of Jakarta and Palembang

After Hanoi’s withdrawal, the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) said that Indonesia, China, and the United Arab Emirates were major candidates under consideration to host. Indonesia was widely regarded as a favourite, since Surabaya was the runner-up of the previous bid, and willing to do so if selected. The Philippines and India expressed their interest about hosting the Games, but India failed to submit a late bid because it was unable to get an audience with Prime Minister Narendra Modi after being given an extended deadline by the OCA.

On 5 May 2014, the OCA visited some Indonesian cities including Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, and Palembang. At this time Surabaya decided to drop their bid to host the Games and instead focus on hosting the already scheduled 2021 Asian Youth Games. On 25 July 2014, during a meeting in Kuwait City, the OCA appointed Jakarta as the host of the Games with Palembang as the supporting host. Jakarta was chosen because of its well-equipped sport facilities, adequate transportation networks, and other facilities such as hotels and lodgings for guests. On 20 September 2014, Indonesia signed the host city contract, and during the closing ceremony of 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, Indonesia was appointed symbolically by the OCA to host the next Games.

The OCA originally planned to hold these Games in 2019 rather than 2018, so that Asian Games would be held in the year immediately prior to the next Summer Olympics, rather than two years before. After they were awarded to Indonesia, the OCA backtracked on these plans and kept the Games in 2018, so that they will not interfere with the 2019 Indonesian general elections.

2 | Development and preparations

2.1 | Costs

Total cost for the games is estimated as $3.2 billion. By 2015, the central government had allocated a budget of IDR 3 trillion (USD 224 million) to prepare for the Games, with regional administrations also expected to supply some part of the funding. However, by July 2018, the budget allocation for the Games had been reported to be IDR 6.6 trillion including IDR 869 billion from sponsorships.

2.2 | Marketing

The Games’ mascots (name from left): Bhin Bhin, Kaka, and Atung.

The emblem for the 2018 Asian Games was first unveiled on 9 September 2015, in celebration of the country’s National Sports Day. The emblem featured a stylised depiction of a cenderawasih, a rare species of a bird in Indonesia.

Organizers withdrew the design in January 2016, after it was widely-criticized for its outdated appearance. Its accompanying mascot, Drawa, was also criticized for having little connection to Indonesian culture and history (with some Indonesians joking that Drawa looked more like a chicken than a cenderawasih). An open call for a new design was held, resulting in 60 submissions. The final design was unveiled on 28 July 2016; titled Energy of Asia, the emblem is modelled upon Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, and is intended to symbolize unity among Asian countries.

The same day the logo was unveiled, three new mascots were also unveiled, replacing the previous cenderawasih mascot, which are Bhin Bhin—a greater bird-of-paradise, Atung—a Bawean deer, and Kaka—a Javan rhinoceros. They represents the Eastern, Central, and Western regions of Indonesia and also strategy, speed and strength respectively. Each mascots also wear different clothes: Bhin Bhin wears a vest with Asmat pattern details, Atung wears a sarong with Jakarta’s batik’s tumpal pattern, and Kaka wears Palembang’s traditional attire with flower pattern.

In July 2018, Indonesia Asian Games Organizing Committee (INASGOC) released the medal design to public, featuring the Asian Games logo and the batik style of all Indonesian regions, reflects the cultural diversity of Indonesia and their unity. In addition to cultural diversity, batik motifs also reflect the diversity of ethnic, religious, and racial Asian communities who participated in the 18th Asian Games.

Official songs

On 13 July 2018, the Indonesian Asian Games Organizing Committee (INASGOC) released an official music album of the 2018 Asian Games titled Asian Games 2018: Energy of Asia. The album consists of 13 songs involves several cross-genre musical artists.

2.3 | Promotion

On 18 August 2017, simultaneous events were held at Jakarta’s National Monument and Palembang’s Benteng Kuto Besak to mark the one-year milestone prior to the Games. The event in Jakarta was attended by president Joko Widodo, and featured performances by Taeyeon and Kim Hyo-yeon of K-pop group Girls’ Generation. Countdown clocks were unveiled at the Selamat Datang Monument and in front of Gelora Sriwijaya Stadium.

Several fun run events had been held in some Asian countries since December 2017, with Lahore, Pakistan as the first city to organize the fun run event.

On May 2018, an event marking 100-day milestone prior to the Games was held, featuring the introduction of Asian Games torch. The torch design is inspired by traditional weapons named golok from Jakarta and skin from Palembang, South Sumatra.

2.4 | Torch relay

The torch relay began at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in New Delhi, host of the 1st Asian Games, on 15 July 2018. The flame will be generated from a parabolic mirror directed straight at the sun. On 18 July 2018, a ceremony took place in Brahma field by the 9th century Hindu temple of Prambanan near Yogyakarta, where the torch’s flame from India were fused together with an Indonesian natural eternal flame taken from Mrapen, Central Java. Subsequently, the Torch Relay Concert were performed marking the start of torch relay throughout the country.

The relay then continue to travel through 54 cities, 18 provinces in Indonesia, including host cities. The relay will finish on 17 August, the 73rd anniversary of the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence in the National Monument, Jakarta before being carried into the opening ceremony at Gelora Bung Karno Stadium the next day.

3 | Venues and infrastructures

For the games, some venues will be built, renovated, and prepared across four provinces in Indonesia: Jakarta, South Sumatra, Banten, and West Java. The facilities for the Asian Games 2018 are located in the capital city of Jakarta and Palembang (South Sumatra), in four different sports clusters (three in Jakarta and one in Palembang). However, 15 arenas for matches and 11 training arenas in West Java and Banten which shares border with Jakarta, will be used to support implementation of the 2018 Asian Games. There will be total 80 venues for competitions and training. The organisation hopes to keep the cost down by using the existing sports facilities and infrastructure, including those venues built for the 2011 Southeast Asian Games, and after the test event of the 2018 Asian Games in February, Inasgoc moved several sports that will be held in Jakarta International Expo to Jakarta Convention Center.

3.1 | Jakarta

Gelora Bung Karno Sports Complex in Jakarta will alone host 13 sports after renovation. The 55-year-old Main Stadium’s capacity is being reduced from 88,000 spectators to 76,127. A facial recognition system will also install at the stadium in anticipation of terror threats. A Velodrome is being built at Rawamangun in East Jakarta, at a cost of US$ 40 million for cycling, badminton, futsal, basketball, and wrestling. An equestrian facility is being built at Pulomas with a cost of US$ 30.8 million, which could host up to 1,000 spectators. It was set to be equipped with 100 stables, athletes lodging, an animal hospital, training places, and a parking area on a 35-hectare plot of land.

3.1.1 | Gelora Bung Karno Sport Complex

Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium will host the ceremonies and athletics.

3.1.2 | Other venues in Jakarta

3.2 | Palembang

Gelora Sriwijaya Stadium will host the final of women’s football.

Jakabaring Sport City complex at Palembang will host for other sports events. Several plans has been raised to add and improves the facilities in the complex, including a capacity upgrade of Gelora Sriwijaya Stadium from 36,000 to 60,000 seats which was cancelled, instead the capacity was decreased to 27,000 after installing individual seats to whole stadium tribunes along with pitch and other facilities improvements in the stadium. The new venue in Jakabaring Sport City is a 40-lane bowling alley which was completed in late May 2018. Eight additional tennis courts was built in the complex for the Games. The length of canoeing and rowing venue in Jakabaring Lake was extended to 2,300 metres along with rowing facilities and a tribune which was built on the lake shore. Other existing venues which will be used for Asian Games were also had been renovated, including Ranau Sport Hall as sepak takraw venue.

3.3 | West Java and Banten

3.4 | Athletes’ Village

Athletes village in Jakarta is built at Kemayoran at an area of 10 hectares land, which has 7,424 apartments in 10 towers. Total accommodation capacity of 22,272 at the village exceeds International Olympic Committee standards, which require Olympics hosts to provide rooms for 14,000 athletes. The Athletes’ Village inside the Jakabaring Sport City at Palembang will house 3,000 athletes and officials.

Kemayoran Athlete & Media Village

3.5 | Transport

Ampera LRT Station, one of 13 stations of Palembang LRT which will be used to upgrade the city transportation capabilities ahead for Asian Games.

As part of the Games preparation, the construction of the Jakarta MRT and Jakarta LRT will be accelerated. A line of Jakarta LRT will connect athlets village at Kemayoran in Central Jakarta to the Velodrome at Rawamangun in East Jakarta. City bus operator TransJakarta added 416 buses to serve the officials, and also provide free rides on selected days during the Games.

Palembang upgraded their transportation facilities ahead for the Games by building 25 kilometres of the Palembang Light Rail Transit from Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II International Airport to Jakabaring Sport City which will be expected to be opened for public use by late July 2018. Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II International Airport is expanding its existing arrival and departure terminals to increase its capacity and also connecting the airport with the light rail transit (LRT) terminal by building a skybridge. Other transportation facilities such as toll roads, flyovers, and bridges will be also built in and around the city.

4 | The Games

4.1 | Ceremonies

The OCA determined that Jakarta would host both the opening and closing ceremonies, although an earlier sports minister said Palembang would host the closing ceremony.

4.2 | Sports

In March 2017, the Olympic Council of Asia initially announced that the Games would feature 484 events in 42 sports, including the 28 permanent Olympic sports contested at the 2016 Summer Olympics, the five additional sports that will be contested at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, as well as events in other non-Olympic sports. In April 2017, the OCA approved reductions in the programme in response to cost concerns; belt wrestling, cricket, kurash, skateboarding, sambo, and surfing were dropped from the programme, and there was to be a reduced number of competitions in bridge, jet ski, ju jitsu, paragliding, sport climbing, taekwondo (in particular, all non-Olympic weight classes), and wushu. These changes reduced the total number of events to 431.

The final programme was unveiled in September 2017, increasing it to 462 events in 40 disciplines as the second-largest programme in Asian Games history. Additional disciplines being introduced at the 2020 Summer Olympics were also added, including 3×3 basketball and BMX freestyle.

For the first time in Asian Games history, eSports and canoe polo will be contested as a demonstration sport in the Games. Six video game titles will be featured in the event.

Demonstration Sport

eSports

Canoe polo

4.3 | Participating National Olympic Committees

All 45 members of the Olympic Council of Asia are scheduled to participate in the games.

It has been agreed that North Korea and South Korea will compete as a unified team in some events under the title “Korea” (COR), as they did at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Both nations will also march together under a unified flag during the opening and closing ceremonies.

Originally set to compete as Independent Asian Athletes, the Kuwaitis are allowed to compete under their own flags just two days before the opening ceremony.

Below is a list of all the participating NOCs.; the number of competitors per delegation is indicated in brackets.

4.3.1 | Number of athletes by National Olympic Committees (by highest to lowest)

4.4 | Calendar

5 | Concerns and controversies

Prior to the Games, several concerns have been raised over the preparation of the Games. Authorities in Indonesia confident both host cities will be ready for the Games although have had only four years to prepare rather than the usual six after stepping in to fill the gap when Vietnam, whose city of Hanoi was originally chosen to host these Games by the Olympic Council of Asia, dropped out in 2014 citing concerns over costs. On top of that, work in both host cities was delayed throughout 2015 because government funding was not immediately available.

Jakarta, consistently ranked as having one of the world’s worst traffic congestion, is building a subway. However, it will not be ready until 2019, so organizers have proposed closing schools during the event to curb traffic from millions of commuting pupils. Authorities also proposed to set aside toll roads and bus lanes for special official and athlete use during the Games. Jakarta has also instated an odd-even licence plate system to limit congestion.

Security is another concern, with the Games taking place just a few months after a series of terror attacks, which killed dozens of people and provoked fear over Islamist militants. Some 100,000 security staff including bomb squad and sniper teams will be deployed in Jakarta, Palembang, and West Java, where the majority of events are hosted. Local police said they have been taking part in a pre-Asian Games crackdown on terror suspects and petty street criminals. Before, the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) also raised concerns over Malaysian athletes’ security issues due to the recent provocations by Indonesian fans at venues and on social media.

Air pollution also becomes a concern on both cities. Jakarta has long struggled to boost air quality, regularly rated as unsafe by the World Health Organization (WHO) as Jakarta’s average score on the Air Quality Index (AQI) had exceeded 100 during early July 2018, once reaching the “unhealthy” range at 171 on 11 AM, Tuesday, 17 July 2018. Palembang also had been constantly under risk of haze caused by peatland fire during dry season which coincides with the Games. Authorities are looking into the possibility of cloud seeding to combat the fire hotspots by triggering rainfall in dry areas with flares of salt shot into suitable clouds. Authorities has been covered a polluted, foul-smelling river near the Asian Games athletes’ village in Jakarta with black nylon mesh over fears it will be an eyesore at the showpiece event.

On 21 July 2018, less than one month from the Games, women football venue of Gelora Sriwijaya Stadium in Palembang had been partially damaged in a riot during local football match. At least 335 seats had been destroyed by the mob.

Officials had held Asian Games’ men football tournament drawing three times due to protest from UAE and Palestine which were incidentally not included in the first drawing. Later, Iraq withdrew from tournament which forced officials to rebalance the groups by determining which of Palestine or UAE would be moved to Group C to replace Iraq.

7 | Gallery

8 | Medal table

China led the medal table for the tenth consecutive time. Korea claimed their first gold medal at the Games in the canoeing women’s traditional boat race 500 m event.[119] A total of 37 NOCs won at least one medal, 29 NOCs won at least one gold medal and 9 NOCs failed to win any medal at the Games.